Fictional Technology
=Fictional Technology= The future world of TNG has a lot of technology that doesn't exist in the real world, and it was getting to the point where we needed a list of that stuff to keep it all straight. So here it is! Old Brotherhood Supertech This stuff existed in or before 2003, but was secret until either the Cradle Wars or the Brotherhood's disbandment. * Stasis devices: Capsules, boxes, etc, that keep people in suspended animation. As of 2050 they seem to be commercially available; portable versions were never mentioned at any previous point, but in 2050 a stasis box takes up about as much space as, say, a freezer. * Extremely fast planes: Exactly what it says on the tin. They come in full passenger jet size and little fighter plane size. In 2003, one of them was used to get the Heartwood students and staff from New Hampshire to Japan in five to ten minutes. The technology is probably available but not ubiquitous for civilian planes, since references to long flights have been made during the T3G era. * Tranquilizer pistols: Also self-explanatory. Not really seen in use by anyone who isn't associated with Heartwood. May be sold commercially as a self-defense weapon for subduing muggers etc in a nonlethal fashion. (Or, more likely, mostly nonlethal. I don't know exactly how those things work, but unless some kind of deus ex machina involving powers is involved, you could still probably kill someone with tranq darts if you shot them with enough of 'em.) * While it's not Brotherhood supertech exactly -- they may have had the same capacity, but the Cradle was the one that actually used it -- even in the 2000s they had the technology to genetically engineer themselves supersoldier-types with far greater finesse and versatility than we have in our present. It doesn't seem to have become commercially available, though, because radical human genetic engineering is still the province of mad scientists and secret government projects (or at least somewhat-hidden government projects; I dunno if I'd call the Griffins' parent project "secret") in 2051 and gengineering cosmetic changes or less dramatic improvements to your kid's health just plain doesn't seem to be an option. (Editing out genetic disabilities like, say, Down's syndrome, however, seems uncontroversial enough and obviously beneficial enough for it to be commonplace.) Power-Related Stuff Stuff that interacts with people's powers. Pretty self-explanatory. * Power nullifiers: Little devices that turn off powers. Both area-effect and single-person versions have been seen. They can come in fairly small sizes (it turned out to be a bluff, but a patch with this effect was seen in T2G and nobody questioned the technological side of this) but not so small as to make it possible to administer them undetectably. The kind that just turn off one person's powers have to make physical contact with them. There's unspecified legal restrictions on owning them, presumably because power nullification can cause death under certain circumstances; all we really know about these restrictions is that it's most likely illegal for minors to own nullifiers. They're also sufficiently hard to get ahold of, whether due to legal snarls or just costing too much money, for it to be impractical for high school sports teams or those of smaller independent colleges to enforce the same depowering rules as the pro leagues. * Power test machines: They read what powers somebody has and whether they have the meta-gene. The technology to identify what powers somebody will have hasn't been developed yet and may not be possible, but they can tell the user everything about what powers the use-ee currently has. Due to laws concerning meta identification, babies have to be scanned with these machines before they reach a certain age, and there's probably a law or something about getting re-scanned if your powers change. * Power detectors: An offshoot of the test machines. They were developed with an eye to producing something that could give you a play-by-play of what powers were being used and how in real time, comparable to a person with power-vision, but the technology is in such a neonatal state right now that all they can do is detect whether anyone's got an active power (that is, one that's always on or being used right now) in a certain radius. Still useful, but for rather more limited applications than the inventor wanted. Everything Else * Virtual reality gaming: First became practical in the 2030s. In the 2050s, the equipment consists of a helmet with a visor; Cammy is unsure how deeply immersed players are, because they can hear conversation in the room they physically occupy and respond without leaving the game. * Mobiles: Little do-everything gadgets, sort of like smartphones on steroids. They do pretty much everything that portable consumer electronics do today: phone, IM/texting, games of every stripe, music, PDA functions, GPS maps, Internet browsing (although practically everything else can also connect to the internet, so that's not exactly special) and... y'know, everything. * 4Ds: Stands for Double Density Digital Disc. The media format of choice for the 2050s. * MBR: Mini Blu Ray (Disc). The media format of choice for the 2030s. * Datapads: Similar to the iPad but more futurey and not necessarily Apple-based. They're basically tablet PCs. Or, rather, what tablet PCs should aspire to be, since most of the ones from our time are just laptops with removable keyboards. * Hydrogen fuel cell cars: They're... uh... cars that run on hydrogen fuel cells. They've pretty much replaced gas cars, because they're cheaper to run and not anywhere near as pollutey. (The people of the 2050s tend to take a dim view of gas cars, partly because they had those flaws and partly because old movies and games and so forth depict cars as being very, very easy to blow up. This is a source of great frustration to old-car enthusiasts and people old enough to remember gas cars.) Since they aren't half as costly to run as today's SUVs, gigantic cars are back in style in the 2050s. There was also an electric car fad in the 2020s that was popular enough to make car charger outlets pop up wherever cars might be parked - in parking garages, attached to houses, on the street - but still pretty much instantly died in 2030 when the first fuel cell car that was actually any good debuted on the market. * Fabric that can change its color by itself is around, and available for purchase by J. Random Civilian, but too expensive for it to be the standard clothes material or anything, and fabric that can do fine enough color changes to print messages is technically possible but hideously expensive and thus pretty much only seen on tacky celebrities. * By 2030 fusion technology was finally mastered. Initial fusion reactors used Hydrogen-3 as their primary source of fuel, but since that is radioactive, public and government outcry pushed for the use of much safer Helium-3 for a fuel source. It has taken two decades to convert, but now most developed countries primarily use He-3 Fusion reactors as their primary energy source. ** Smaller He-3 Fusion reactors have also been built for use in military naval vessels such as submarines and ships. These small scale He-3 Fusion cores have also been tested and developed for space travel. * Even though Brotherhood Supertech existed for space travel, it was always just considered a pipe dream and a luxury effort for governments to pour money into. However, since the development of the fusion reactor, need for the rare He-3 isotope has skyrocketed, spurring on another space race. There are now He-3 mining outposts on the moon as well as the gas giants (in which Helium-3 is much more abundant). ** Although luxury cruises around the planet and to the moon exist, civilian travel in outer space is still extremely limited. Those sturdy individuals who are willing to go for the very long stints to the gas giants as miners are paid handsomely by the corporations who run them. *** There is also a fully functional space station orbiting Earth as well as a luxury hotel or two on the moon, but since the technology behind creating artificial gravity is still years off (and even that's a very optimistic estimate, because the laws of physics as we know them provide no way to control gravity, so short of faking it with centripetal force - which doesn't work for planetbound buildings anyways - it may never be possible to make artificial gravity without involving metahuman-derived effects), it is limited to research and exotic vacation spots. The Brotherhood's now-abandoned Uranus station had artificial gravity, but the device that generated it was built by a metahuman gadgeteer and stopped working when its creator died. * Around 2040 a technological revolution began to sweep through the country, helped mostly in part to tech from Kensington Industries. Located in Boston and head up by Albert Kensington, Kensington Industries has drastically changed the technology industry in the past decade and revolutionized the way data is transferred through massive changes to the internet's infrastructure. Eliminating the Draconian system of using cellular technology to surf the web, Kensington Industries fronted a lot of money to set up a true wireless internet infrastructure throughout the country. The cell phone companies have adjusted their devices to fit the new technology, but have to pay Kensington Industries to use their Wi-fi towers. ** Although Albert Kensington has gadgeteer abilities that allow him to bend the laws of physics for his technology, he has spent great efforts to develop technology using his hyper intelligence not his gadgeteer abilities. Although his personal quarters and homes will his super advanced technology he does not want to give the world a new technology rush that will only crumble after he dies. ** In addition to the new internet infrastructure, Kensington Industries has also become the world's largest juggernaut in terms of technology. Their tech is everywhere, reinventing both hardware and software. * Contraceptive technology has advanced and there is now a male version of "the Pill" that will make a male's sperm infertile for a 24 hour period. * Waterproofing has basically been perfected. It's totally safe (for both the device and you) to go swimming with your mobile in the pocket of your swim trunks or take a laptop into the pool or bathtub. This also means robots can't be stopped by water unless they're really ghetto robots, and the only way for stupid or suicidal people to electrocute themselves at home is by sticking a fork in a power outlet or disassembling something they really shouldn't. (Or using an antique appliance, I guess.) * Thanks to improvements in automated manufacturing and automated body-scanning technology, there are a number of chain stores that make custom-designed, tailored clothes for you right in the store for a price that's competitive with off-the-rack clothes. Therefore, finding clothes in one's size or a particular desired item being difficult to find are no longer obstacles to people being able to dress however they want. (This is a godsend for the cosplay community.) However, clothing sewn and/or designed for you by actual humans is still expensive. Off-the-rack clothing is still the majority of the industry, though. Thrift stores are largely unaffected by the shift, since they aren't really in the same business as sellers of new clothing in the first place. Other Stuff You Should Know This is more social changes (or, alternately, stuff that could be built today but hasn't been) than actual technology, but I thought it would be dumb to make a separate page for it, so here it is anyways. * There's a network of high-speed maglev trains linking the cities of North America. They travel at around 600 kilometers an hour (this is based on an experimental Japanese maglev train that exists today, for the record). Assuming there are no delays, and only counting the train trip itself, it takes about half an hour to get to Vancouver or Portland from Seattle; two and a half hours to get to Los Angeles; and about six and a half hours to get to New York City. Slower than planes, but a lot less airporty rigmarole, and they're fast enough to compete with planes for the same types of trips so long as you plan to stay on the same continent. * Texting and most of the common IM protocols have been rolled into one service. * North American phone numbers have thirteen digits, like this: (604) 519-867-5309. In the first few decades of the twenty-first centuries more and more area codes got pressed into service to differentiate an ever-increasing number of phone numbers, but in 2036 the phone companies decided that this was getting out of hand and making area codes meaningless, and opted to add another "syllable" to the numbering system instead. * Homosexuality is about as acceptable as casual sex: religious people generally disapprove of it to various degrees, but it's socially acceptable and mostly unremarkable. Homosexual marriage is legal in most Western countries; the US legalized it in 2013. ** By contrast, attitudes about pre-marital sex have not changed much at all in the last 40 years. Even those who object to it consider trying to stop it Quixotic at best, but a strong distinction is made between pre-marital monogamy and meaningless one-night-stands, the latter being viewed as immature and/or selfish at best by the majority. Friends-with-benefits relationships are somewhere between these two extremes. It's pretty much exactly the same as it is today, so don't worry about adjusting characters' attitudes about sex in relation to marriage to fit the times. * Cammy was trying to subtly communicate that it was normal for even little kids to have cell phones when she gave them to all her child characters in the T2G era. So yeah! * Marijuana is legally sold for recreational consumption, similar to alcohol and tobacco. The same restrictions apply to it as to alcohol: 18 year age minimum, no driving while stoned, etc. * The drinking age in all US states was lowered to 18 in 2024. * There are no longer separate rules for women in any major sport (I'm mostly thinking of hockey here), and pro leagues such as the NFL and NHL are open to both genders if they're good enough players. However, between sports still being perceived as more of a male pursuit and the natural advantages men have in hitting things very hard, the field's still dominated by athletes with penises. Women's leagues also exist in addition to the main, formerly-all-male leagues, but they probably don't get significantly more attention than they do today. * In terms of the NHL, the Florida Panthers have moved to Quebec for the revival of the Quebec Nordiques. Some of the division teams had to be moved around, which ended up cementing one of the greatest rivalries in NHL history, the Penguins and the Capitals. ** The past decade has seen a "New Canadien Dynasty." In the past 8 years, Montreal has been in the playoffs everytime. They have won 3 cups and been in the finals 3 other times. * The NFL has Canadian teams now. In 2036, they added the Montreal Legion, Vancouver Thunderbirds, Toronto Grizzlies, and Calgary Wolves to the roster. To accommodate the expansion, the American Football Conference has changed its name to the North''American Football Conference. ** The Cleveland Browns have still never made it to the Super Bowl. This isn't actually relevant, but it should be made canon since they just wouldn't be the Browns if they were successful, ever. * As of 2050, Seattle has a decently extensive subway system. The oldest line, the Pacific Line, was built in 2017; since then, three more lines have been added. The most recent was the Puget Line, built in 2046. * In order to prevent powers being used to cheat, professional athletes have to wear patches that nullify their powers while they're on the field (with an exception for people who can't be safely depowered, but if they also have a power that would give them an unfair advantage they simply can't play); in an effort to compensate for this, a Metahuman Olympics has been established, taking place in the same cities and at around the same time as the regular Olympics and Paralympics, for the purpose of showing off feats of powered athleticism. ** There are a small number of sporting arbitrators with power-vision who're called in to observe sports events (in major league sports or the non-powered Olympics) when a competing athlete is suspected of using their powers to cheat, by tampering with the patch or lying about what their powers actually are or whatever. * A sport which so far lacks an in-universe name, but which has been dubbed "Super-UFC" by the players, was invented in 2037: In a nutshell, you put two supers in a huge arena set up to look like a city and they fight. There are different "weight classes" to ensure that the participants are only pitted against people with whom they're evenly matched, and the sport, while extremely expensive, is paid for with sponsorships and the like. While there's no actual rules against lower-powered metas participating, if they can't compete properly in even the lowest power-weight class, it's not very likely that they'll be able to gain/keep sponsorships. As a consequence of this sport's popularity, people with hard-hitting powers (the more spectacular they are to watch, the better) are highly sought after by talent scouts. ** Somewhat related to the above: Pro-wrestling has also begun incorporating the existence of meta-powers into both matches and storylines. Officially metas and norms are meant to be put in separate divisions, but like all things in pro-wrestling, the "rules" tend to frequently be ignored when the story calls for it. * The environment is in much better shape than it is in our present. Part of this is because transportation and electricity are handled by much cleaner infrastructure than we've got, and part of this is because in the 2020s a charitable organization of metas used their powers -- weather control powers were prominent, as well as transmutation powers and superscience -- to clean up a fair portion of the existing damage. * Inflation has happened: prices and salaries are around 3.25 times what they are today. (Credit to Broos for figuring that out.) You can probably round it down to "multiply by three" for quick calculation, though for small change it's more like it's rounded up to 4x current amounts (such as dollar coins being used the way quarters are). ** In addition, the dollar bill has been phased out, replaced with the dollar coin (which bears the face of Theodore Roosevelt), and the cent coin has been phased out completely. A $5 coin exists, but is rarely used. * There are laws against using your powers to make counterfeit versions of trademarked products, but they're hard to enforce unless you actually catch someone in the act of conjuring up fifteen iMobiles, since most people who would want to do super-counterfeiting can make perfect copies. It's not against the law to make non-branded or fake-brand versions of the same item, but if you sell them on eBay or wherever they won't get you as much money, because there's no customer service to call if your knock-off starts behaving erratically and buying meta-made knockoffs is definitely a buyer-beware situation. * There are also laws against making yourself rich by producing a whole bunch of some valuable substance (gold being the obvious example) and selling it to the highest bidder, because that sort of thing screws up the world economy. It's not illegal to make valuable materials in ''general (mostly because there's been cases of not-perfectly-controllable Midas touch powers), or to sell small to moderate amounts of it, and if you want to use your powers to make a bunch of something valuable for the purpose of mass-producing a product (gold for circuits, for example), you can get a permit for that. * This has just kinda been assumed, not spelled out, but I'm spelling it out now for the sake of clarity and ensuring consistency: It's not terribly out of the ordinary to have people use their powers to perform services for money that are unusual, impossible, or would be much more laborious to achieve through conventional means. However, they can be rather hard to find, or levels of expensive ranging from "quite" to "outrageously" for better-known professional metas, because metas are a minority in the first place (a rather large''minority, but still outnumbered by people who don't have superpowers) and not that many of them have powers that are useful for tasks like scarless plastic surgery or changes to their customer's powers. ** In particular, there's a thriving genderswap industry. It's not cheap (buying a can of TG Soda is theoretically cheaper than getting a human to do it, but that stuff is pretty rare), and doing it on a whim is considered frivolous (partly ''because it's not exactly cheap), so it's mostly just tacky celebrities who change their sex as often as they change their underwear, but transsexuals consider the existence of people who can instantly make them a member of the opposite sex a godsend. As do method actors, for that matter. * Rock Band is like the freakin' Energizer Bunny of games. The zombie Energizer Bunny. It just keeps going and going and going. I'm going to arbitrarily say it's got up to Rock Band 11, plus a handful of single-band games (for bands both real and fictional), because I've forgotten what the number was last time it came up. Anyways, it's still going strong in 2051. It probably has like every song ever by now, and it's in arcades as well as on home consoles. At some point -- probably in the late 2030s or 2040s -- they added a Super Expert difficulty level that, like DDR, grades you not only on whether you hit the note but also how closely you hit it. (Also, regarding Pro mode: the arcade version supports it for drums and keyboards, but not guitar and bass because the instruments stand up poorly to the constant abuses of arcade play.) ** To facilitate this whole 'having every song ever' thing, Rock Band now has the ability to generate note tracks for any song you put into it, similar to how Audiosurf works. Songs are still given official releases sometimes, though, because while the automatically generated notecharts are accurate most of the time, they may not be as much fun as a less accurate version of the song produced by people. ** Final Fantasy is another zombie-Energizer-Bunny franchise. * The current king of England and Wales (Scotland is independent and Ireland is unified) is Henry IX, the modern Prince Harry, who was the only member of the Royal Family to survive the Cradle's initial attack and join the resistance. He has one confirmed daughter, Princess Mary, who is apparently very cute. ** Also the English monarchy has been altered to remove the preference for males and the prohibition against Roman Catholics. Should a non-Anglican take the throne, whichever Anglican is highest in the line of succession will be named head of the Church of England. ** Australia has removed the English monarchy as heads of state and now has an elected President, but remains in the Commonwealth. Canada doesn't care enough to worry about it.